August 15, 2013

Spicy Tuna Tartare Recipe

Our neighbors invited us for dinner a little while back, and I
volunteered to bring appetizers. They included their adult kids, one of whom
was acutely allergic to wheat. It was hot and I didn’t want to cook. So I
reached for my playbook of easy-and-refreshing dishes and made this spicy raw
tuna tartare.

I’ve been making this Asian-fusion snack since the 1990s,
when my friend Maki revealed that the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills put the Rooster
brand of chile garlic sauce into its spicy tuna tartare. Maki was a chef at the
hotel and was tickled by the high-brow use of a low-brow, ethnic ingredient. I
was skeptical but when I tried it out, my tuna tartare went from good to great.
The little bit of fermented chile heat added zip.

I like to serve a communal bowl of the raw tuna tartare and
have guests scoop it up with Vietnamese toasted rice crackers (banh da nuong/banh
trang nuong). Good ones are tough to obtain outside of hard core Little Saigon communities,
so my default are small round rice crackers sold at mainstream markets (check
out these, which
I get at Whole Foods). We had a few of the Viet crackers in the pantry so we
used them to treat our neighbors extra well. If you’re bready, serve the spicy
tuna tartare on toasted baguette slices; brush a little olive oil on them
before toasting or baking until golden brown.

Our neighbors are avid gardeners so I harvested herbs from this summer’s garden to accent the tuna. I combined red perilla (tia to) and Vietnamese balm (kinh gioi), which go well with the fish. Resist using cilantro as the resulting flavor is off.

The neighbors were unfamiliar with tuna tartare so I explained
that is was like the stuff featured in spicy tuna sushi rolls but more textured
and better tasting. Just in case there was a vegetarian or vegan, I brought curry popcorn too.

Halve the cucumber lengthwise, then use a spoon
to remove and discard the seeds. Dice the cucumber into the size of regular
(not petite) frozen peas. Put into a bowl.

Halve, seed, then peel the avocado. Dice the
flesh to be slightly bigger than that of the cucumber. Add to the bowl, along
with the fresh herbs.

Dice the tuna to be slightly bigger than the cucumber and avocado. Discard any
white gristly bits as you work. Add to the bowl.

Squeeze on some of the lime juice (try 2 or 3
squeezes), then drizzle in about 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, and 2 to 3 pinches of
kosher salt. Add the chile garlic sauce, then use a spatula to combine. Taste
and adjust the flavors to be a little stronger than you like. When satisfied,
add enough mayonnaise to enrich and bind. Taste again and finalize the flavor. Transfer
to a communal serving bowl and offer the crackers or bread on the side. Invite
guests to scoop or plop a spoonful onto the cracker or bread.